


static and smoke - fire

by angelheartbeat



Series: fuck it ill do it myself [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abstract, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Fire, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Metaphors, Nightmares, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 13:31:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15607341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: for when vomit rises like fire in your throat, and darkness shrouds your eyes like the smoke





	static and smoke - fire

**Author's Note:**

> otherwise known as: gray tries to be artsy and abstract and Fails
> 
> well thorbruce week was a hoot  
> im plannin on updatin tmtyl soonish maybe perhaps bc oh boy has it been a while

Bruce gasped, his eyes snapping open as he sat up in a flash, throat burning. His body was drenched in sweat, hands trembling worse than they had in years. While the nightmare itself was disappearing like smoke in the air, the emotions were sticking to the inside of his head like the smell of a cigarette.

He felt like he could vomit as he tried to grasp at what the nightmare entailed, stomach churning with something painful.

And then images started to leak back to him, the smoke curling into his nose and down, wrapping itself about his lungs and cinching ever tighter. Every vein in his body burned like a fuse, inching closer and closer to the ticking time bomb of his heart.

The kettle clicked on. He wasn't sure how he got there.

Thoughts were clumping together in his brain, causing foggy lumps and blockages that made his eyes ache and his head ache worse. Everything in the world was still as the whistle of the kettle cut through the knot of strings and loose, half-formed thoughts in his head.

Steam curled upwards gently as he poured water on top of a teabag, and the smoke tightening around his lungs squeezed in jealousy.

Staring into space was easy when you could barely put two words together, choosing instead to drift out of focus, drift out of life, and float in a void where you don't have to think about flying fists and stinking breath and new bruises on young skin which should only be bruised from play.

Bruce burned his tongue on his tea.

He stared into space again.

It was at times like these when it was the hardest, when he could hardly find the energy to string together the vague senses in his skull. The sky was the deepest shade of grey, and he could sleep forever. When nothing he did seemed to matter even to himself, and he wasn't so much inside his body as he was just to the side of it.

The window was dirty. He didn't have the energy to get up and clean it. Perhaps if he left it long enough it would clean itself, and wouldn't that be a turn up for the books?

The fire in his throat dulled to smouldering ash, and he choked on it as he breathed. His chest rattled with the exertion. Normally, when he felt this bad in the past, he would distract himself; throw himself into helping others, even at times when he felt too exhausted to move at all. Other people needed him more than he needed to wallow in whatever he was feeling.

But now, there, in a kitchen that felt too clean and a life that shouldn't be his, he had no one he could help, nothing he can do except sink further and further into his own brain.

He couldn't. He mustn't. He couldn't fall victim to the feelings, to the mush in his chest or the memories locked in his head. He needed that same stability, he needed to do something for someone and not think about himself.

Getting up, Bruce located a rag from under the sink and wiped the dirt on the window away.

No use in wallowing. No use in allowing himself to fester and rot away, not when everyone else was suffering too.

Maybe he'd make breakfast.

* * *

Thor woke up similarly, the lingering smell of electricity and rain bouncing in his head like it singed something vital. He was panting, shivering while somehow hotter than he'd ever been.

The echoes of his nightmare played in his ears, rang with the screams of the people he couldn't save. He'd never met them and yet they plagued his mind. They sent chills down his spine and raised the hairs on his neck, drenched his mind in guilt and awoke him in pools of sweat.

It took him a moment to address the emptiness beside him so often occupied by his lover and friend. It was familiar. Bruce often awoke early, particularly when plagued with nightmares and memories that Thor couldn't help him with and so desperately wanted to.

But Bruce couldn't help with Thor's, either.

They both tried, though.

Thor swung his feet out of bed.

Moving was a bad decision. A wave of fire rose in his stomach and he swallowed, standing quickly and sprinting to the bathroom in order to collapse in front of the toilet, retching up static and fire and bile and feeling like death.

He shivered. It was suddenly cold.

Thor was used to electricity, to static and lightning and the raw energy of it all, but not the buzzing in his head. The white-hot needles of pain stabbing into his brain, feeling like the equivalent of the static he'd seen on Midgardian televisions - these only appeared when he had a nightmare, when he woke up with the thrumming of a storm in his head, when he couldn't let it free to the sky and it just circled him instead.

He gently touched his empty eye socket, false eye absent. It felt hot, almost burned his fingers as he touched it.

He barely registered his own actions as he stood, flushed the static out of the bowl and staggered away, head throbbing with energy.

Somehow, he made it to the kitchen. Bruce stood by the stove, trying to harness his breathing and focus his emotions into eggs.

The eggs were burning.

Thor hugged him and told him the eggs looked great.

Bruce knew he was lying, but neither of them had the strength to acknowledge it. The eggs didn't look great, but Bruce needed something to do. Smoke was reaching into his stomach, bubbling and churning and worsening the hold it had on his lungs, and a migraine was burrowing beneath his brow. Thor was trying not to crack under the electric feeling in his bones, not the familiar power, the one that made him shiver and shake and sweat.

The eggs finished and were piled onto plates.

They ate in silence.

Everything was different and yet familiar, unknown and strange and yet a repeating occurrence. Neither of them had the strength to talk, just knew that they both needed each other in that moment more than they needed anything else in the world.

They didn't talk about the nightmares. They rarely talked about the nightmares. It hurt too much, and helped so little.

They just ate, and talked about nothing that mattered, and knew that they would both be okay, little by little.

The static wasn't quite gone, but it cleared. The fire turned to ash, but the flames were doused.

Things passed, and they would be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> well wasnt that a mess and a half i Love making no sense xoxo
> 
> comment if u think im great


End file.
